np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 9 - Rock You Like a Hurricane

Hello tiering enthusiasts. It will likely come as little surprise to you all that the OU Council has finally decided to address rain in the tier. For this round, the suspects will be Tornadus-T and Keldeo. We're going to go back to the one ladder system after having experimented with two ladders last round. Voters must obtain a Glicko2 rating of 2000 or higher and a Glicko2 deviation of 55 or lower on the "OU (current)" ladder. Since we've all been here before I'll just cut to the chase and get to the bullet point list of doom!

Tuesday, December 25th: Suspect Ladder, called OU (current) on Pokemon Showdown, is reset. Big thanks to Zarel for setting it up!

Friday, January 11th at 11:59 p.m. EST: The Suspect Round ends. A screenshot of the ladder will be posted at that time in the Voter Identification thread.

Saturday, January 12th at 11:59 p.m. EST: Special applications are due, and the voting thread will be posted. It will most likely be up for around two days.

We'll most likely post a Voter Identification thread for your ladder screenshots later. Be sure to take a screencap of your rankings once you reach the 2000 +/- 55 threshold. Have fun friends!

Credits to Jabba for the excellent choice in song.

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ATTN:

fat ginganinja said:

To avoid confusion here, Drizzle is off the table utterly. The OU Council does not want the following to happen:

So atm I'm planning on voting OU on both of these so that we can hopefully get a Drizzle test and ban that instead.

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There are many reason for this, the primary one being that it skews the results of the suspect test. For the purposes of this thread, Drizzle is off limits, and please assume we wont have a Drizzle test following this, so post / vote accordingly. OU Council members are welcome to post their reasoning as to why abusers are being tested rather than Drizzle as a whole, but aside from this exception, this thread is for the discussion of Keldeo and Tornadus-T ONLY.

Oh God yes, not only we finally used that song for a np thread but we're not testing Drizzle. Loving this.

I wonder how this test will fare. As much as I despise Tornadus-T, I haven't faced much during the Genesect test. I had a lot of problems with any that appeared, even if I always had a good enough plan of action (simply because Hurricane is a fucker). Keldeo, on the other hand... I haven't seen one, and it's #40 or something. People will surely use that in favor of its OU status, which I find wouldn't be a good enough argument but might stick anyway.

Both Tornadus-T and Keldeo have legitimate counters unlike many other Pokemon in the OU metagame which will make it hard for me to ban them. I originally wanted a Drizzle test as well, but that would probably cause a slippery slope leading to all weather being banned. This causes a headache for the OU Council, which is why I presume they aren't going to test Drizzle.

Tornadus-T's problem lies in both its speed and Regenerator. You have to have a Choice Scarf'd Pokemon to revenge kill it, and it can simply U-Turn out of its counters and outlive them with Regenerator and momentum.

Keldeo's problem lies in the fact that its counters are easily trappable (Pursuit..) and Scarf Hydro Pump in rain is a bitch.

So atm I'm planning on voting OU on both of these so that we can hopefully get a Drizzle test and ban that instead. Torn-T is no way broken without 100% Hurricane and I don't believe Keldeo would be in the sand.

@above the only weather that may need testing after Drizzle would be Sun, Sand and Hail aren't ban worthy

Since the majority here thinks that Scar Keledo alone isn't enough to get him banned, let's delve into the other Genie.

But before that it would be helpful if we knew how the vote would be made, for each pokemon or toghether?

Anyway, the Hurricane man.

120 STAB Hurricane under the rain with 30% Confusion and a speed tier of it's own it really doesn't need a scarf and so can even take it's damage output further or lessen it's chances of getting OHKO'd by proper item. And then there's Regenerator and U-Turn, collectively saying F.U. to SR setters, giving a boost to setting up your own (I don't think that any spinner wants to come in on the genie, and it outspeeds Timid Starmie to further the point) and enabling a whole new set for it, scouting with the U-Turn.

So, it goes mixed as well. Weaknesses include standard lol Flying Type, which is hit by everything and their cat, not much of a bulk and getting smashed neutrally by 4/5 priorities (+2 Mach Punch via techniloom isn't something you want to encourage your opponent to try either way). Also it does nothing much to walls like the Pink Blobs unless it goes mixed but then again that can be worked around as well (someone can spill the calcs for a mixed physical attack against evo chansey). Oh and it's made useless by changing weather :)

Let's wrap it up by judging it against standard smogon banning criteria:

1) Predictability: Scout, Scarf and Standard Rain Abuser. You won't be fretting at how to counter him. 2/10 on danger scale.

2) Counters: It's counters and measure of counter acting include strong priorities, scarfers and special walls, which aren't many to begin with and you might end up tossing something before you can wear it down, especially with SR. No usual OMG THIS THING IS IMPOSSSIBLE LET'S PROMOTE THE NICHE SON OF A NICHE OF A PU POKEMONG TO KILL IT! 6/10 on danger scale.

3) Overcentralizing: Offensively nobody contests this thing is a beast, and rain isn't exactly lacking in partners or quick fixes to his mentioned problems, it is obvious that Rain is the dominant weather with it being the super star and the core of most offensive rain teams. 8/10 on danger scale, and only because you still need the support to push the dominoes.

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Edit: I'm still in the minority, growing but minority nevertheless, of saying this a new metagame with new abilities and several powerful mons, let instead of banning more stuff retest previous ubers and give the remaining weathers a fighting chance. In this sense you can use a second OU ladder to see the effect without messing with the main ladder.

Well, I struggle with Tornadus-T very rarely.
Mostly, this is because I over-prepare for him. Also because so many people think he's invincible with Regenerator and risk his life on bad plays.

Keldeo...is absurdly strong in the rain, but I don't think he's suspect level. I mean, Tornadus-T has a combination of factors - high speed, Regenerator, etc. - while Keldeo is mostly just all muscle. Yes, that is a lot of muscle, but it makes Keldeo a one-trick Water Pony.
I assume that the Choiced sets are what people think pushes Water Pony onto the suspect level, and not his CM sets.
Also, Keldeo is the 2nd cutest Pokemon.

You know with drizzle being such fire sparking argument causer as whole,I think you guys should open a separate topic for it instead and have this focus on the two abusers at hand? That way you can still have the arguments for it but not clutter this topic here at hand.

Granted, there is the relation between the two that cannot be argued and the arguments will most likely have the thin line going on.

But it could work as a compromise atleast.

When it comes to these two guys here at hand, I really cannot say much about Keldeo as I haven't had much trouble with the guy. But I'm honestly suprised Tornadus-T took this long to get looked into. Ever since he was released he's caused such amount of teeth grind with that spammable STAB tornado its not even funny.

This will certainly be interesting and even if no single poke of those two gets banned a lot of light will be shed on the matter of whether we should test drizzle or not. I am almost sure that both Keldeo and Torn-T will stay OU as they have tried and true counters and checks.

Keldeo is countered by Celebi and Amoonguss, and both of the Grass-types don't give a fuck (Celebi should carry Baton Pass) about the most common Pursuit users paired with Keldeo (Ttar and Scizor). As for checks, Keldeo has a dozen of them, namely Jellicent, SpD Rotom-W, Tentacruel, Latios, Latias, Starmie, Roserade, Kingdra, Gastrodon, Vaporeon, and Toxicroak. Finally many offensive Pokemon can revenge kill non-Scarfed Keldeo, such as Latios, offensive Starmie, Torn-T, Alakazam, Scarf Thund-T, Jolteon, and Scarf Kyu-B.

Torn-T is countered by Jirachi and Zapdos, and if Jirachi is physically defensive, which is a very good set in this meta, both of them don't mind a Dugtrio partner at all. It also has its fare share of checks, with SpD Rotom-W being the most popular, but Heatran, Chansey, Jolteon, Thundurus-T, Gastrodon, Bronzong, Metagross, and SpD Skarmory work too. Finally, while not many non-scarfed Pokemon can outspeed it, every Scarf user can OHKO it, priority hurts it badly, namely Bullet Punch and Ice Shard from Scizor, Mamo, and Weavile, and without its weather it is much easier to handle.

You guys forgot about another broken pokemon in the Rain *points to custom title*

Torn-T and Keld are the biggest offenders of Rain, but they're obviously not broken without it. I don't even think Rain will miss them, just look at before those two were released. Was Rain not the dominant playstyle then? Yeah, you get rid of two incredibly powerful pokemon this round, but its not like Rain doesn't have a ton of other viable options to replace them.

This round is going to be really interesting. I can understand both arguments for and against these two suspects and so I expect it to be a close round for both Pokemon.

What gets me most about Tornadus-T is not necessarily Regenerator, but more often than not it needs a Choice Scarfer to outspeed it, which then allows you to abuse their choice-locked move by setting up against it accordingly.

Keldeo is not a threat if you run Jellicent and struggles to 2HKO unless they switch into Specs HP Ghost with Stealth Rock and sand present. The Scarf set has proved its worth for months and really surpasses what CSTerrakion accomplished in BW.

Yes please. Thanks to whichever OU council member(s) put this idea on the table. Both suspects listed here give rain such an unbelievably unfair advantage over other play styles that it would be an extreme injustice to keep these things in OU.

ala is absolutely correct in saying that rain doesn't need these two Pokemon to function anyways. Torn-T and Keldeo were just icing on the cake. Look at how good rain was in bw1 - solid and effective, but not broken by any means. That's the kind of rain bw2 should have as well. It doesn't detract from Raina's viability, but gives other styles of play a chance at success in the metagame. And maybe now I can stop running either Jirachi or Rotom-W on every single one of my teams to check the bird.

Anyways, Torn-T is the more likely of getting banned. His Hurricanes are VERY powerful, and with either LO or Specs he can hit real hard. He's got amazing 121 Speed and Regenerator and U-Turn, allowing him to constantly keep offensive momentum, restore health, and constantly spam Hurricane at a breakneck pace. That's ridiculously powerful. Superpower could send the pink blobs and Ttar running for their money. This makes Tornadus-T a super powerful force to be reckoned with. He also literally murders every Fighting-type as well as anything not scarfed. He makes rain extremely powerful overall, and is a very hard to stop force. I'd say it could be ban worthy, but hey, it has its checks, namely Rachi and Zong (and the mighty as fuck Metagross), as well as Mamo, Weavile, and Jolteon and the such. But still, I'd say it's somewhat ban worthy.

Keldeo is quite frankly amazing, with super powerful Hydro Pumps and Secret Swords, and HP Ghost does Jelli and the Latis. Scarf is great R-Killer, SpecsKeldeo hits so hard it's not even funny, and CM can wreck. But it does get walled easily, by like um...Amoonguss and Celebi. And also loses to Psyshock Starmie and Latios. Also, it's been on a streak of low usage, so I'd rather say it's not exactly ban worthy.

I don't really think Keldeo is ban worthy, sure, it's powerful as hell in Rain, but the fact that many things can check even in its own weather just okay (yeah, nothing likes to take Specs Hydro Pump, but the same is true for CB Close Combat from Terrakion, except that physical walls tend to crumble easier than special ones, in my experience). The Scarf set may be concerning somewhat, since it gets the Speed boost and double STAB in rain, but still I think it's quite manageable (maybe it's because I love Celebi but w/e). The points raised towards Torn-T's ban are quite stronger in my opinion: crazy Speed, Regenerator, and the ability to U-Turn into trappers to eliminate a fair share of checks all together make me think about a ban much more than in Keldeo's case.

Either way, I don't think Rain is the problem; Rain just got more tools to abuse it, but removing that weather will probably result in Sun or Sand being instantly overpowered, so...the idea of removing most problematic Rain abusers "to save Rain from a ban" is the right track, at least in my opinion.

What i think about keldeo and tornadus-t is quite simple, i actually dont know if they deserve a ban or not but i dont care. Tornadus-t and Keldeo are both pokemon that can with the right support be problematic and get rid of their counters quite easily making a sweep easier. To make it easier to understand, the fact that something can sweep with the right support is what any sweper in the ou tier should do; i bet that noone can tell me a counter for Lucario, Terrakion, Kyurem-b and almost any dragon in the tier, so i dont know why these two pokemon should be banned, there are things that actually doesnt even need support at all to sweep and they are ou since bw1. Keldeo and torna-t are not even something that with just one turn of setup can 6-0 you, maybe Scarfkeldeo (with the right support) can spam hydro pump and ko all your 6 pokemon, tornadus-t can do the same because flying resistors are not that common, but take in mind that choice scarf exist as well as Bullet punch and Ice shard, so tornadus-t is not going to 6-0 you in any way unless you have already defeated the things that beat your tornadus-t, and this is something that works with almost any sweeper in the tier.
Now i guess why someone is happy for these two bans, the main point is that with these two guys out of commission rain offense teams will be nerfed, making the tier more "stable". I dont know actually if banning Torna-t and Keldeo can make this metagame more stable, i hope so, but i would like to say that if these two things will be banned its just to nerf a playstile more than the effective power of torna-t and keldeo. I would like to say why drizzle should be tested instead of the abusers (i dont know why you didnt add thundu-t at this point) but ill get infracted so whatever, lets test these two mons.

Hello tiering enthusiasts. It will likely come as little surprise to you all that the OU Council has finally decided to address rain in the tier. For this round, the suspects will be Tornadus-T and Keldeo. We're going to go back to the one ladder system after having experimented with two ladders last round.

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And regarding the suspects themselves...I don't think either of these pokemon are especially powerful. Keldeo is very good but has multiple hard counters in the tier. Not only are they hard counters, but they are DAMN GOOD POKEMON too. You don't want to let your opponent's Latios/Latias get in and start wrecking things. Tornadus-T is also good (which is why its suspect) but it lacks the offensive presence to fill its advertised role. It simply can't OHKO things like Terrakion and Garchomp, and lacks the defenses to switch in as anything other than a pivot. After Genesect got banned, this pivot role got a whole lot weaker in the metagame. Maybe someone will blow me away with a great new EV spread in this discussion thread, but Tornadus is very underwhelming as a suspect. After playing metagames with Garchomp, Kyurem-B, and Genesect....Tornadus-T just doesn't even seem threatening.

And both of these pokemon require a large amount of support to "work". They both need rain to be up to be sweep-ready, and they both REALLY need hazard damage. Tornadus-T is simply not a threat in the first 5 turns of a battle.

You paint a good picture of the metagame but you are missing a few bits of pieces. It is true we went through all of that to nerf Rain, you just missed the parts where most of these pokemons were there but yet a single Pokemon like Deo-S, Blaziken or Excadrill made the entire playstyle we call Drizzle irrelevant.

It would lessen the tests and arguably the suffering and time taken, but with it banning Drizzle would be banning an entire playstyle and many, much more pokemon along with it for a handfull of pokemon, and that was after we removed other ubers that made rain weak and irrelevant.

You paint a good picture of the metagame but you are missing a few bits of pieces. It is true we went through all of that to nerf Rain, you just missed the parts where most of these pokemons were there but yet a single Pokemon like Deo-S, Blaziken or Excadrill made the entire playstyle we call Drizzle irrelevant.

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Well that's flat-out wrong. All three Pokemon you listed above did little to inhibit the success of rain. In fact, for the last two, it was the other way around: Blaziken and Excadrill were both hindered severely by rain's presence. And that was back in the days of BW1 , without these two new suspects to contend with. Think of how laughably weak Blaziken would be in this current metagame. Even a +2 HJK isn't taking Torn-T down. Excadrill's huge Attack and Sand Rush will always be threats to contend with, but still inarguably weaker in today's OU era.

The Sun thing was a joke in case you didn't pick up on that.

If you don't like reading my posts, read j7r's posts instead. He makes some good points.

You paint a good picture of the metagame but you are missing a few bits of pieces. It is true we went through all of that to nerf Rain, you just missed the parts where most of these pokemons were there but yet a single Pokemon like Deo-S, Blaziken or Excadrill made the entire playstyle we call Drizzle irrelevant.

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I see what you're saying, but the fact that Drizzle was still the most dominant playstyle even with those monsters in the metagame says everything we should need to know. Drizzle killed Excadrill, neutered Blaziken and between SwSw and rain stall, pretty much every rain team had a way of dealing with Deo-S. Drizzle is still the most centralizing force in the metagame, except now there are fewer ways of dealing with it.

It would lessen the tests and arguably the suffering and time taken, but with it banning Drizzle would be banning an entire playstyle and many, much more pokemon along with it for a handfull of pokemon, and that was after we removed other ubers that made rain weak and irrelevant.

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You say that banning Drizzle would be banning an entire playstyle...how many playstyles does legal Drizzle completely eliminate? Lots more. Also, we would have fewer bans since we would just be banning an ability.

Rain is not "weak and irrelevant". That's the whole point of this suspect test, because even after 2 years of nerfing Drizzle it is STILL not nerfed enough.

I know it was a joke that why it was so funny coming from you, Mr. BW2 Sun :)

Anyway while I appreciate your implicit support for retesting Blaziken in this meta, no one denies that Sand and Sun were the better weathers to abuse when these mons were there instead of Drizzle currently. People talk like all we have been doing is saving rain while they keep forgetting how Rain became powerful in the first place and how we have been saving all weathers collectively since day 1.

i highly disagree with a Drizzle ban as it would unbalance the whole thing of weather wars; it will make the matchup problem even worse. Tornadus-T and Keldeo are uber, the first can come in and out how many times he want due to regenerator and nothing non-scarfed being able to outrun it... its counters are jirachi, spd rotom and bronzong and if you dont run them you have to run hyper offensive or you'll be weak to him, plus tornadus can just weak them down with hurricane + u-turn and have a partner to spin the rocks. Keldeo can pretty much smack everything in its way with a specs or cm set and a scarf set is also really effective. not only overcentralizes as its forcing you to bring amoongus or a special defensive celebi (wich was rather uncommon before him, now its the most used set, and it also can fall down to specs hits). nor to mention its counters are all pursuit weak except amoongus who also can get weakned to a strong pursuit anyway...

as for future bans: would support a landorus ban, latios ban and deoxys-d ban

Moderator

To avoid confusion here, Drizzle is off the table utterly. The OU Council does not want the following to happen:

So atm I'm planning on voting OU on both of these so that we can hopefully get a Drizzle test and ban that instead.

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There are many reason for this, the primary one being that it skews the results of the suspect test. For the purposes of this thread, Drizzle is off limits, and please assume we wont have a Drizzle test following this, so post / vote accordingly. OU Council members are welcome to post their reasoning as to why abusers are being tested rather than Drizzle as a whole, but aside from this exception, this thread is for the discussion of Keldeo and Tornadus-T ONLY.